


Mortality

by teacupofhoneybees



Series: Mortality [1]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26327605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupofhoneybees/pseuds/teacupofhoneybees
Summary: A series of one-shots where the detective brings up their Mortality to their LI. Chapter one is Adam, chapter two is Mason, chapter three is Felix, and chapter four is Nate.
Relationships: Detective/Adam du Mortain, Female Detective/Felix Hauville, Female Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles), Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Series: Mortality [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1913080
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

Mortality -Adam-

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

If Dinah heard those words one more time from Adam, she felt she would truly snap. Crazed vampires changing her blood for life and making her a target she could take. Adam nonstop beating her no matter what she did, she could not.

“Can I take a break?”

“If this were a real fight, you wouldn’t get to take a bre-” Adam began lecturing, but Dinah interrupted him quickly.

With a sickeningly sweet look in her eyes and an equally sweet, pathetic tone she asked, “Please?”

… He gave in nearly immediately to that.

Dinah collapsed into a heap on the deliciously cold floor of the training room. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as Adam let her take a quick break from their rigorous training. Well, rigorous for her, anyways. Adam couldn’t be less bothered if he tried.

Each muscle ached in protest as she raised her limbs to survey the damage. Everything was still there, though she was sure every part of her body would have scornfully abandoned her for putting them under such abuse. 

Studying her skin closely, she began to look for the early signs of bruising. It was a habit she gotten into every time she tried her hand at honing her nearly non-existent fighting skills against the supernatural. It’s not that Adam, or any of her fellow members in Unit Bravo, intended to leave any mark- but it was impossible to avoid given the activity and her frail (well, frail by supernatural standards) body. Luckily, such markings only appeared in places very easy to cover up by her usual attire of a summer dress, covered by a cardigan, and matching tights or leggings. 

If she had managed to land a good hit on Adam, any sign of it would have disappeared immediately. He looked as overwhelmingly handsome as always, unbothered as he checked his phone to make sure he did not miss any emergencies (or what he considered an emergency) while she tried to become one with the floor to avoid any more physical activity. 

She wondered if the contrast in their states bothered him as much as it did her. Or, rather, if the contrast in their circumstances bothered him. She had no way of knowing if Adam put the same stock into the realities as she had… unless she were brave enough to ask.

She sighed loudly, the volume more than enough for his super hearing to catch, to prompt an inquiry out of him.

But, alas… nothing. 

So she sighed even louder and longer this time. 

…Nothing. 

Are you kidding me?

She put every ounce of drama she could muster into another sigh and this time she saw results. 

Not a peep came out of Adam, but a small rare smile tugged against the corners of his mouth. He was getting on her nerves on purpose.

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’m but small, girlfriend-shaped puddle on the floor that also happens to be the love of your shockingly long life trying to speak with you.”

Adam chuckled at that, but his focus remained on the phone. 

“Oh, truly? I hadn’t noticed by the very pointed sighing coming from that side of the room. And what might the very convincing puddle have to say to me, I wonder? Surely she wouldn’t be trying to charm her way out of training… again.”

Dinah looked towards the ceiling, nervously biting at her lip. 

“Have you ever thought about it?”

“Thought about what? Trying to charm my way out of training? You’ll have to be more specific. As I have often reminded you, I cannot know your thoughts if you do not share them with me.”

She turned her head to look in his direction and said with apparent disgust, “That I’m getting older.”

He looked at her from the corner of his eye, humor still clung to his mouth and voice as he said, “Dinah, need I remind you that I am over 900 years old?”

She swung and missed. It wasn’t direct enough and she hadn’t brought the topic up in a serious matter than would warrant his stern response. 

She would try again.

“No, but you must be aware that time will continue ticking and me moving along with it. I know I am. I’ll be decrepit some day and considering my very unique blood situation, I’d be lucky if I get to live anything resembling a long li-”

Dinah stopped mid-sentence as the phone dropped from his hands at that, but lightening quick reflexes caught it before it could hit the ground. He really couldn’t afford to break anymore of his or her stuff. 

The silence between them was deafening.

“I’m not discussing this.” he stated. 

With a groan of pain, Dinah got off the floor to approach him and gingerly place a hand on his forearm. 

“Adam, please, some day we will have to discuss this. Why not now?”

His arm tensed under Dinah’s touch, but it was a good sign that he did not pull away. She didn’t know what she would do if he had pulled away from her- protecting himself by denying what was there.

“You are young and healthy. I am doing everything I can to protect you and teach you to protect yourself, the team as a whole is doing their utmost for your safety, and you doubt it? The chances of you… The chances of extreme harm coming to you are not zero, but not likely either. We wouldn’t allow it.”

She could not help but notice how desperately he danced around the word “dying”.

“Adam, it’s not about ‘allowing’ it. I know you think things happen only as you approve them, but that’s not how it is. How many gambles do you think it will take before I’m all out of chips? Hell, my number was moments away from being up when we fought Mur-”

She regretted it the moment she nearly murmured Dr. Murphy’s name. Adam’s eyes closed and his jaw tensed, as it does when he was reminded of Dinah’s state that day. Cradled in his arms, her blood rapidly leaving her, her hand raised to him tell him he’s handsome… She had nightmares of Murphy, but she could not deny that so did he. 

“Dinah, please.” he pleaded quietly. 

She wrapped her arms around him, a silent apology. 

After a while like that he sighed, pulling only his arms out of her embrace, placing both his hands on the sides of her face, and angled her to look at him. Her dark eyes met his icy ones and they stayed like that for a long time. Eye contact from day one had always felt like their own personal eternity.

“I have thought about your inconvenient mortality, Dinah, I’ll admit it. But it is not a topic I wish to linger on for any amount of time. The realities of what you are, what I am, what we face, does not allude me and-”

His phone, as it often does, pings to interrupt the moment. 

After checking it, he announces that it is her mother and that he must go. 

Placing a very tender kiss to her forehead he says, “I’ll send Mason to come finish your training.”

As his hand touches the handle of the door, Dinah boldly asks: “Would you do it?”

He freezes, stiffness coming back to his shoulders. She didn’t specify what “it” was as he usually would ask of her. He seemingly understood exactly what she meant.

“Would you turn me?” she followed up, unnecessarily but quietly.

He did not look her way as he responded with a defeated tone.

“Dinah, I am incapable of denying you anything if you ask it of me. If you decided you wanted it, if it were the right thing to do-”

“An answer, please.” Dinah interrupted.

“Yes.”

And with that he walked out the door.


	2. Mason

Mortality -Mason-

Dinah was in her absolute favorite place in the world, in the arms of her moody boyfriend. The lights were dimmed for their mutual benefit, so that she could see and so that he wasn’t in pain the whole time they were together. She lay atop him fully, enjoying not worrying about crushing him with her weight thanks to him not being human and listened happily to the beat of his heart while he lazily tried to braid her long, strawberry-blonde hair. 

It was another night in the warehouse where she had a nightmare, but she really couldn’t say she minded if she were rewarded with this. Mason pretended to be huffy, as he always did, when she had the absolute audacity to ask if she could stay with him and snuggle. 

“What do I look like? A body pillow?” he replied gruffy, all the while easing himself into a laying position with his arms open for her to crawl into. 

“Maybe you do, you know, if I squint.” she had responded. 

He scoffed at that.

And then here they were. 

Between the panic from the nightmare and the joy of spending quality time with Mason, she really didn’t know how she expected herself to go back to sleep. It had taken a lot of really hard work to get Mason to get to the point where he accepted more… wholesome time together and she wanted to be awake for every minute of it for the rest of her life. 

Her eyes opened at that thought. The rest of her life… how much did she had left in comparison to his forever? No, she shouldn’t dwell on it. She knew she shouldn’t. It would kill her mood.

Mason spoke as he felt her blink against his chest.

“I believe humans are supposed to be sleeping right now. Or at least doing a very poor job of pretending to.” 

Human. Mortal. Finite. 

“Ha-” her sentence began as she angled her face to look at him, but was immediately interrupted as one of the hands that had been playing in her hair covered her eyes. 

“Shhhh…. lights out. I am not going to be the one blamed in the morning by Adam when you’re not at your absolute best in the morning because you stayed up.” 

Dinah could hear the smirk in his voice, the meaning evident, as he added “Well, not without a very good reason to have kept you up, anyways.” 

She knew that prying Mason’s hands off her face would be impossible, what with him being a vampire and her not being strong even by human standard, so she did the only thing she could think of. 

She poked her tongue out and got his hand with it. 

“Agh,” he exclaimed as he released his hand in surprise at the action. 

Dinah pounced before he could say anything more inappropriate.

“Have you ever thought about doing it?” she blurted out and immediately regretted as she had meant ask a better, more thorough, question but she was too eager to get a word in before he could.

His eyebrows raised at that and his ever-present smirk took it’s usual place on his pretty face.

“As a matter of fact, I have. Beyond that actually, I’ve actually done it. And with astonishing little persuasion from a certain someone, I could be very ready to do it agai-”

“Ew, not that!” Dinah exclaimed as she propped herself into a sitting position in his lap. 

If the heat on her face weren’t enough, he had that… glowy look about him as he did whenever he had successfully made her flustered to tell her that she was the brightest of reds. 

“Ew?” he asked with false offense. 

He propped himself into a sitting position as well, Dinah unmoving, as he placed his hands on her hips and brought his mouth to the usual spot on her neck. The spot where the pale scar from Dr. Murphy lived.

He placed a quick kiss to it and then said: “That’s funny, sweetheart, that’s almost the exact opposite of what you were saying the other nigh-”

“Would you turn me into a vampire?”

He backed away from her neck so quickly at that she feared that he would push her away altogether. 

“What?” 

All playfulness had left his face and tone. 

Stretching her arms out and lacing her fingers being his neck, she took on a gentle tone- one that always disarmed him.

“I was just thinking about it, you know, how much it sucks that my mortality could separate us at any moment. I have such a large target on my back with my blood being what it is.”

Another scoff came out of him. 

“I’m serious!” she exclaimed, at least Mason’s version of an exclamation. She really didn’t want to assault his senses and pelt him with questions at the same time.

“Seriously out of your mind if you think Adam would sign off on you dying, you mean.”

Dinah ignored such a ridiculous response with, “I could get sick.”

Mason rolled his eyes at that one.

“I’d like to see a supernatural try and get you sick since it’s impossible. And for your silly human illnesses, we have doctors and healers.”

“Fine, I’m gonna get really old and gross some day.”

His eyebrows raise. 

“Three things about that: you’re tragically beautiful and destined to age well, that would take a very long time, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little curious as to what it would be like to sleep with a woman that ages like wine. I’ve ever done it with an ol-”

Swiftly ignoring the “beautiful” remark, Dinah let go of his neck and slipped out of his lap without an ounce of grace. 

“You’re impossible!” she said with a glare as soon as she balanced herself and smoothed out her clothes. 

He did nothing more than look at her. 

With that, she stomped in a way that he would not admit was cute to the door. Putting on her very best angry face, hand placed on the handle of the door, she looked back at him. Graciously giving him one more chance to take this conversation seriously. 

He did not take it. 

“Love you,” he said- followed by making two air kisses in her direction.

“Ugh!” she groaned and did the most polite door slam Mason had ever seen. 

As soon as the door clicked, he speedily reached for a cigarette and lit it. He took a very long drag on it, exhaling a large plume of smoke. He ignored that his hand shook. 

As much as she was angry at him, he was almost equally as angry at her. What kind of question was that? Every day he was reminded by Adam of her mortality. Every time a supernatural so much as looked at her, he was aware of her mortality. The mark that scarred her neck would forever remind him of her mortality.

The cigarette aided as sufficiently as it could to subdue his anxiety… his feelings.

In that moment he wished he were more like Nate… honest with complicated feelings that Mason wasn’t accustomed to. What he wouldn’t give to tell Dinah that she was the only love he’ll ever know for the rest of forever and that he really couldn’t stomach focusing on the fact that every day was a new day he could lose her. How easily he could lose the feeling of being alive that she gifted to him, asking for nothing in return. 

“I would,” he answered to a question she had asked now that nobody was around to hear it. 

He became aware of his phone pinging and had two notifications. 

One message was from Nate, some kind of gibberish expressing how Mason really shouldn’t upset their Detective so much and should apologize. 

The other was from Dinah.

I’m gonna haunt you for eternity 

He smiled at the words, something that would irritate her greatly if she knew. While he knew she was just trying to jab him one more time to encourage the continuation of their conversation, he took them differently than she intended. 

She would haunt him for eternity, in the best of ways. He had never been more pleased with a threat.

Go to bed, sweetheart 

He messaged back. 

A swift reply came immediately 

>:(

And with a chuckle, he closed the phone.


	3. Felix

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. 

The sound of Dinah’s foot tapping the floor softly echoed in the room as she looked out the window. It was dark out and there wasn’t even anything to look at, really, but she was relying on the fact that Felix would forget that not everyone can see in the dark and wouldn’t question it. Seeing as he remained unmoved on the sofa, enraptured by his phone at the moment, she was pretty confident she was getting away with it. 

Phone. Douglas. Ugh. 

She couldn’t believe the mouth on that kid. He had the audacity, the absolute AUDACITY, to guess her age today. Did he do the right thing, the gentlemanly thing, and aim low? 

No.

As per usual, Douglas lacked even a smidge of tact and aimed high. Guessed that she was 42. She wasn’t even in her thirties yet. 

The tapping of her foot became more incessant at the recollection. 

The thought had stayed with her all day. When she was washing her hands she happened to look into the mirror and began to wonder if the fine lines under her eyes were more visible than normal. Later, as she reapplied her lipstick, she couldn’t help but think that her laugh lines were deeper than the day prior. Even later than that, she was filling out paperwork as her mind wandered to thinking about crow’s feet and if she had ever fake smiled at herself to see if she had the beginning signs of them. Before clocking off for the day, she wondered how crinkly her forehead looked as she raised her eyebrows during a good stretch.

“Babe, you know I love your Adam impression, it’s spot on… but I am worried that if you keep tapping your foot like that Mason is going to come in here and be mean to you. And then be mean to me because I’m guilty by association. I really don’t want him coming in here and…. meanie-ing up a storm.” Felix said, breaking his silence. 

Dinah left the window and walked over to where Felix sat. She removed the phone from his hand, earning a questioning look from him, placed the phone on the table, crawled into his lap, wrapped her arms around him, and nestled her face into the crook of his neck. 

Felix leaned back into a more comfortable position, wrapping his arms around her, and rested his chin on the top of her head. 

“Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“Am I old?” she asked, voice muffled by his neck.

“Uh, I don’t think I’m a good judge of that seeing as I am immortal. And, like, so is most of everyone I interact wit-”

“Fine, do I look old?”

“That’s what this is about? Dinah, you barely look older than me-”

“Oh, god.” she practically sobbed against his throat.

With her face pressed to his neck, Dinah felt his pulse quicken as he realized he just made one of the biggest no-no’s that he could have.

“No, wait, shit… I mean, um… Come on, throw me a bone here. You know where I was going with that, don’t you? Don’t you? Babe? Baby? Dearest? Honey? Darling? Love? No, ‘my love’ sounds better, doesn’t it? Or is there a difference?”

Of all things, he used her weakness against her. Cute pet names. Betrayed by her own mouth, she smiled and she could tell he feel it on his neck. 

“There’s my girl,” he sighed and started sloppily peppering kisses all over her face.

Pulling out of the onslaught range, she puffed out her bottom lip at him.

“Oh, no… not the pout. Anything but the pout. It’s equal parts guilt-inducing and cute. My heart can’t take both.”

Dinah stuck her bottom lip out even more. 

“Noooooooo….” he groaned, dipping her to pepper more kisses anywhere that she had skin showing.

She didn’t last long until her pouting turned into peals of laughter.

In between little kisses he managed to get out comments about how nice her skin was, how smooth it seemed, anything to hint at her not looking old and ensuring that he was successfully putting a band-aid over his boo boo. 

“All right, all right, I give. I won’t pout anymore.” 

“Do you promise?”

“Yes, I promise.”

He placed one last kiss on the tip of her nose, as if to seal the deal, and pulled her back up to how they were sitting before he waged war on her face. 

He smiled brightly at her, as he often did, and she basked in the glow of it. 

His face was so beautiful to her, so vibrant, so full of life, and Dinah knew it always would be. 

Time would never leave tracks on his skin the way it would hers. 

She frowned. 

“Would you turn me? Into a vampire, I mean.” she inquired delicately, knowing the dark, heavy topic would dim his smile.

Except for it didn’t, not even a little bit.

“Yeah,” he answered.

Taken aback at the quick response, she asked: “Really?”

“Yeah, of course,” he confirmed nonchalantly, “but, like, not right now. It’s kind of late and I do not want to deal with your mother or Adam in the morning if I did something without them being in on it.”

“You didn’t even hesitate to say yes.”

“Should I have?” 

“Well, I mean, yeah? A lecture about treasuring my humanity and whatnot.”

“Well, first things first,” he started matter-of-factly,” I have never lectured in my life. That’s what we keep Adam and Nate around for. Second of all, unlike Adam, Nate, and Mason, I’ve never been human so I really can’t weigh in on the pros and cons of holding on to your humanity.”

A fair point.

“Well, you know, I would still think there would be some hesitation to that commitment. You know, thinking about the downsides of promising someone forever.”

Felix leaned forward and for a moment Dinah thought that he was going to kiss her, but instead he gently pressed his forehead to hers, as if to imprint the words he was about to say into her, and closed his eyes. 

A rare moment where all humor left him. 

“I can’t think of a single reason why I wouldn’t want to spend every minute, every second, of forever with you,” Felix said, intense feeling laced in every word. “I can only think of a thousand reasons as to why I wouldn’t want to survive through forever without you being there for it.”

He opened his eyes to look into hers, searching for some kind of answer in them. 

Dinah’s face warmed and she quickly became flustered and unsure how to respond. She hoped that whatever Felix’s intense gaze was looking for rose to answer him.

“Forever is a long time,” she said- her voice weak,

He kissed her then. The slow, passionate kind. The kind that meant something. 

Dinah put all the feeling she had into that kiss, hoping that would aid her where her thoughts and words had failed. 

When they finally pulled apart, he rested his forehead to hers once more, a little out of breath.

“I have a feeling that forever isn’t long enough.”


	4. Nate

Nate hated this dream. The haunting of a failure that he would never recover from.

It was a scene Nate had seen before, rather, a scene he had lived before. Murphy, taken down with the help of the detective, and his unit all feeling a general sense of relief that Murphy could do no more harm... but the feeling was quickly ripped away from all of them as Felix shouted for the detective. Nate would never be freed from the memory of the beautiful and brave detective collapsed on the ground with nothing but mud and blood cushioning the fall. 

Nate also could never forget the intoxicating scent of Dinah’s blood that day either and the raw hunger and fear it incited in him. 

Nate was a third party to this vision and recognized the look on himself well. He remembered that moment with jarring accuracy. He remembered the war that was waged within himself like an angel and a devil on his shoulders. The angel begging him to remember himself, that the detective was a living person he knew and was beginning to care for... while the devil reminded him what he was. What he craved. 

Disgust settled in. 

Nate knew how the rest of this scene played out, so he patiently waited for the dream to play it’s course and end. He waited to hear himself mention the rain water.

But he waited in vain. 

He watched himself run towards the detective, cradling her in his arms, and then the vision of himself looked Nate in the eye as he sunk his teeth into the detective... cruelly stealing what little fight she had left. Cruelly stealing what little life she had left.

Nate shot up from his laying position in bed, breathing heavily. He ran his hand through his slightly damp hair and brought his knees closer to his chest in an attempt to comfort himself. 

Panic. Panic. Panic. 

It was just a dream. Just a dream. A dream.

He could try to recite affirmations of how unreal it all was, but he would not know peace. He needed to know that Dinah was well... that she was alive. That her eyes would light up when her gaze fell upon him... that the eyes he had drained the life out of in the dream didn’t exist here. 

Nate was lucky that Dinah stayed at the warehouse that night. He felt guilty leaving his room to approach hers with how late it was... but he would have felt like a creep had he gone to her home. He just needed to hear her heartbeat for a minute, that was all. A confirmation that she was alive and well. That this reality wasn’t the darkest one. Then he would leave. 

And so he left to find himself outside her door. The soft, slow thumping sound of her heartbeat that he knew so well echoed in his ears. It warded away all the hurt and fear he felt. 

Before he knew it or could stop himself, he suddenly found his knuckles lightly tapping on her door. 

He could hear her on the the other side. Her heart picking up the pace as it left slumber. The swish of fabric being pushed aside and she climbed out of bed. The click of a switch. The soft padding of her feet making their way to him. 

Dinah peered through the slight opening of the doorway, seeing it was just him, before opening it fully. Her eyes were puffy with sleep and guilt settled in at his actions. He shouldn’t have disturbed her like this. This could have waited until morning... maybe these feelings would be gone by then and the detective wouldn’t even need to know that this was a nightmare he had. That he feared that some day he would fail the detective once more. Maybe by morning he could leave the nightmare behind like it never happened. 

But it was too late for all that now.

She took one look at him, confusion painted on her face at how awful he must have looked to her, and pulled him down so that she could wrap her arms around his neck in a comforting embrace. 

In truth, he would have been elated with her looking at him with a warm smile as she always had, but he could hardly argue with his situation. 

“Nate, what is it? What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” she releases him after saying that to look at him. “Wait, have you? Are you scared of ghosts? Are there ghosts here? Nobody told me tha-” 

He chuckled despite himself and she gave him the huffy look she always did when she was becoming embarrassed. While he openly would admit that there wasn’t a single thing he didn’t love about her, he’d be lying if he didn’t say he had some favorites. This expression was one to them. 

“I apologize for waking you, Dinah, it was thoughtless of me. But... seeing as I have, might I stay with you tonight?”

He felt uncertain at his words, realizing how they may sound. 

“I’m afraid that my sleep was... interrupted by some unpleasant dreams.”

Warmth and understanding became visible on her face. “Yes, of course you can. Please, come in.”

Her room at the warehouse matched her home. Cozy and comforting. Nate was as at home in the room just as much as he was at home with the person who inhabited it. 

This was not the first time he had stayed here with her. The couple had become rather inseparable as time moved on, evident by some of his things that riddled the room. The side of the bed that he had claimed had a nightstand next to it with some of his things placed there, a space willingly given to him that made a statement of who he was to her like a claim. His room was much the same and it made him feel whole. Normal. Human. Alive. 

He sat in her bed, waiting as she flipped the light switch. While he could see in the dark, she could not, and he pretended that he didn’t witness her stumble her way back to the bed ungracefully before climbing in to join him. 

When they were cuddling in bed, he would always be the big spoon and her the little. Tonight, he wished he could ask her to hold him instead. To cradle him and surround him in the love and comfort he needed. He wanted to be coddled and it made him flush with embarrassment at the childishness of it.

But she was on the same page as him, as always. Words unnecessary between the pair that new each other so well. 

She would never cease to amaze him. 

She felt around the bed, looking for some part of him, and he moved his hand to her searching one. 

“Come here,” she softly. 

She would not need to tell him twice.

She lined them up in a way that his head rest on her chest and he wrapped his arms around her waist, her hands running comfortingly through his hair, and their legs tangling together as they always did. He was unaccustomed to being in her arms this way. How many times had he held her just like this when she couldn’t sleep because of the memories that plagued her? It was no wonder she liked it so much. That she found peace in it. Nate couldn’t fathom how anyone wouldn’t.

Nate could not imagine anything that could put him more at ease, actually. It felt like he had front row seats to the concert that was her heart. That he was privy to the lull that was the rise and fall of her chest. Like he was the only one in the world to know what her warmth and love felt like. He never wanted to leave.

To describe it as heavenly seemed atrociously insufficient. Offensive. There was no word in the dictionary that could describe this. Regardless, it took his pain and fears away. He felt as if his breath left with it. 

_____________________________________________________________

Dinah did not know at what point she fell asleep. 

Nate was no longer in her arms, but propped up on pillows beside her reading a book that was on his nightstand. She knew he must have known she was up based on her heart no longer having the slowness sleep always brought, but she also knew that he would deny having that knowledge in an attempt for their relationship to seem more normal.

“Good morning,” she yawned. 

Nate did his best impression of being surprised by her consciousness, smiled at her in a way that made her knees weak, and put his book back on the nightstand. 

“Good morning, my love,” he replied. 

No matter how many times Dinah heard the words, she didn’t believe that she would ever not become flustered by them. 

She scooted her way closer to him, Nate lifting his arms out of her way, so that she could rest her head against his ribs and drape and arm over his hips. He lowered his arms so that his hands wrapped around her and rested on the shoulder she wasn’t laying on. A tale as old as time when it came to how their mornings went. 

Dinah closed her eyes and let out a content sigh as Nate pushed some of her messily chopped hair out of her face so he could drink in the sight of her, an act he always made a point to do. As if he feared he would never see it again. 

“Can we talk about it?” she asked. 

His hand froze in place at that. 

“Talk about what?”

“Nate, you know what I mean. Last night. Your nightmare. Was it about the ship again?”

“Dinah, I’d rather no-” he began.

“Nate, please share with me. If it is of concern to you, it’s of concern to me. I’d rather not hide and keep things from each other.”

A defeated sigh.

“No, it was not of the ship. I had... a nightmare of when we faced Murphy.”

Dinah felt his fingers trace along the scar that would always mar her neck. One of two gifts that Murphy forcibly gave her.

She could relate to that nightmare, it’s one she couldn’t escape from either. 

“There you were... bleeding out on the ground and at first I thought it was a mere recollection, that at any moment rain water would surround you, but it never came and then I... I gave in.”

“Gave in?” 

“To what I am. I watched you dying right in front of me... and finished the job myself.” 

Dinah raised at that to look at him, to see his pained expression. His eyes glazed over as if he were somewhere else.

“Oh, Nate, it’s all right. It was just a drea-”

His gaze snapped to hers. “And what if some day it isn’t just a dream? What could have happened that night if it hadn’t been raining? What if-”

“Nate, you can ask yourself ‘what-ifs’ until you turn blue in the face but it won’t do you any good. You did the right thing and you saved my life. You can’t what-if your way out of that fact.”

He scoffed, a rare noise from him. Practically foreign. 

“I was also the one who put your life at risk.”

“Nathaniel Sewell, don’t you dare put that on yourself. Murphy is responsible for that night, not you.”

“There will be more Murphys. There will be more mistakes.” he said solemnly. 

“... You could turn me.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you’re so worried about my potential death, you could turn me into a vampire,” Dinah explained.

Nate’s nose wrinkled at that, revulsion altering his face. 

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘No’?”

“I will not do that to you. I won’t steal your life away from you. I won’t throw you into an unsafe world.”

“Nate, I’m already knee deep into your world. My blood is sought after by every bad guy out there. It doesn’t matter which world I’m in, I’ll never be safe.”

He visibly flinched at that.

“Humanity is-”

Dinah would not relent. 

“If I stay human, you’re guaranteeing that you will watch as I die. I don’t want you to do that to yourself. You can’t tell me you want that.”

Nate had the look of a man stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

He reached out to her, putting her back into the position she had been in prior to raising herself up. The only difference being her angled her face to look at him, cradling her cheek in his hand while his thumb stroked her cheekbone.

“I could tell you what I do want.”

“I’m listening.”

“Dinah, what I want is for us to be happy. I want to wrap you up and take you away to an island where no one can harm you. I want nothing bad to ever befall you or even dare look in your direction. But what I really, really want is out of reach.”

“And that is?” she asked, a little overwhelmed by his heartfelt declarations.

“I would love nothing more than a mortal life with you. A normal, mortal life that runs it’s course as it ought. Flirting, dating, engagement, marriage, kids, white picket fences, retirement... to be an old couple that has everyone wondering ‘What’s their secret?’ and us saying something cliché that leaves them with envy rather than clarity. A normal life where the world in which the supernatural is nothing more than a novelty found in fiction. But I can’t have all of that.”

“And please don’t think that it’s not that I don’t want to spend forever with you,” he continued hastily,” because it’s not that either. I can’t think of anything I’d like more. It’s just that... this isn’t black and white for me. This is very much a gray topic for me. A gray topic that I don’t like to dwell on.”

Dinah said nothing as she continued to look him in the eyes, waiting for something more. 

Nate lowered his face to hers and pressed their lips together in a slow, soft, and intimate kiss that he conveyed all his love into. He pulled away moments later and rested his forehead on hers.

“Listen, I can’t tell you what I would do if push came to shove. I am torn. I... Let’s make a deal, shall we? I will try to not obsess over the scares of the past and future if you try not to obsess about your mortality for now, okay? Forever... will be a bridge we cross when we get there. There’s still a lot of time for us to enjoy right now, in the present.”

Dinah’s phone went off on her nightstand. She groaned loud enough to impress Mason were he present. 

“Not exactly. Adam knows today is my day off and he’s hellbent on doing me bodily harm.” 

She rushed off to change, knowing Adam was not to be kept waiting and Nate remained in bed. He would return to his room to change once Dinah left to meet with Adam. 

They were about to part ways in the hall when she called out to him. 

“Nate?”

“Yeah?” he asked turning to face her. 

She stopped in front of him, pulling him to her, and kissed him goodbye. Or at least he had assumed that was it until she answered him. 

“Okay.”

And with that she left him to go train.

He smiled. The present was too nice to be ignored for the unknowns of the future.


End file.
